“My father has promised the money.  He promised it three years ago.  I might have had it when I liked; but I should have been ashamed to ask till a reasonable time had gone by.  It won’t be a large capital, but Moncharmont has some, and putting it together, we shall manage to start, I think.”

He paused, watching the effect of his announcement.  Mrs. Hannaford was radiant with pleasure; Olga looked amused.

“Why do you laugh?” Piers asked, turning to the girl.

“I didn’t exactly laugh.  But it seems odd.  I can’t quite think of you as a merchant.”

“To tell you the truth, I can’t quite think of myself in that light either.  I’m only a bungler at commerce, but I’ve worked hard, and I have a certain amount of knowledge.  For one thing, I’ve got hold of the language; this last year I’ve travelled a good deal in Russia for our firm, and it often struck me that I might just as well be doing the business on my own account.  I dreamt once of a partnership with our people; but there’s no chance of that.  They’re very close; besides, they don’t make any serious account of me; I’m not the type that gains English confidence.  Strange that I get on so much better with almost any other nationality—­with men, that is to say.”

He smiled, reddened, turned it off with a laugh.  For the moment he was his old self, and his wandering eyes kept a look such has had often been seen in them during that month of torture three years ago.

“You are quite sure,” said Mrs. Hannaford, “that it wouldn’t be better to use your capital in some other way?”

“Don’t, don’t!” Piers exclaimed, tossing his arm in exaggerated dread.  “Don’t set me adrift again.  I’ve thought about it; it’s settled.  This is the only way of making money, that I can see.”

“You are so set on making money?” said Olga, looking at him in surprise.

“Savagely set on it!”

“You have really come to see that as the end of life?” Olga asked, regarding him curiously.

“The end?  Oh, dear no!  The means of life, only the means!”

Olga was about to put another question, but she met her mother’s eye, and kept silence.  All were silent for a space, and meditative.

They went out to walk together.  Looking over the wide prospect from the top of the Downs, the soft English landscape, homely, peaceful, Otway talked of Russia.  It was a country, he said, which interested him more the more he knew of it.  He hoped to know it very well, and perhaps—­here he grew dreamy—­to impart his knowledge to others.  Not many Englishmen mastered the language, or indeed knew anything of it; that huge empire was a mere blank to be filled up by the imaginings of prejudice and hostility.  Was it not a task worth setting before oneself, worth pursuing for a lifetime, that of trying to make known to English folk their bugbear of the East?

“Then this,” said Olga, “is to be the end of your life?”